allowSystemPings: Use the external ICMP ping program of the operating system instead of the Java ping. Useful if the devices cannot be reached by Java ping. Default is true.

allowDHCPlisten: If devices leave and reenter a network, they usually request their last IPv4 address by using DHCP requests. By listening for those messages, the status update can be more "real-time" without having to wait for the next refresh cycle. Default is true.

arpPingToolPath: If the arp ping tool is not called arping and cannot be found in the PATH environment variable, the absolute path can be configured here. Default is arping.

cacheDeviceStateTimeInMS: The result of a device presence detection is cached for a small amount of time. Set this time here in milliseconds. Be aware that no new pings will be issued within this time frame, even if explicitly requested. Default is 2000.

Create a <openHAB-conf>/services/network.cfg file and use the above options like this:

Auto discovery can be used to scan the local network for pingdevice things by sending a ping to every IP on the network.
Some network tools will identify this as a network intruder alarm, therefore automatic background discovery is disabled and a manual scan needs to be issued.

Please note: things discovered by the network binding will be provided with a time to live (TTL) and will automatically disappear from the Inbox after 10 minutes.

Because mobile devices put themselves in a deep sleep mode after some inactivity, they do not react to normal ICMP pings.
Configure ARP ping to realize presence detection for those devices.
This only works if the devices have WIFI enabled, have been configured to use the WIFI network, and have the option "Disable wifi in standby" disabled (default).
Use DHCP listen for an almost immediate presence detection for phones and tablets when they (re)join the home Wifi network.

Apple iOS devices are usually in a deep sleep mode and do not respond to ARP pings under all conditions, but to Bonjour service discovery messages (UDP port 5353).
Therefore first a Bonjour message is sent, before the ARP presence detection is performed.
The binding automatically figures out if the target device is an iOS device.
To check if the binding has correctly recognised a device, have a look at the uses_ios_wakeup property of the THING.

Many devices provide services on TCP ports (web-frontends, streaming servers, etc.), which can be used to confirm their presence in the network.
Most operating systems have options to list open ports.
On a Linux-based system, nmap may be used to discover all open TCP ports on the device with the specified IP address:

In this example, there are four suitable ports to use.
The port 554 (Windows network file sharing service) is open on most Windows PCs and Windows compatible Linux systems.
Port 1025 (MS RPC) is open on XBox systems. Port 548 (Apple Filing Protocol (AFP)) is open on Mac OS X systems.

Please don't forget to open the required ports in the system's firewall setup.

Make sure the tool is available in the PATH, or in the same path as the openHAB executable.

On Linux and MacOS elevated access permissions may be needed, for instance by making the executable a suid executable (chmod u+s /usr/sbin/arping).
Just test the executable on the command line; if sudo is required, grant elevated permissions.

Some operating systems such as Linux restrict applications to only use ports >= 1024 without elevated privileges.
If the binding is not able to use port 67 (DHCP) because of such a restriction, or because the same system is used as a DHCP server, port 6767 will be used instead.
Check the property dhcp_state on the THING for such a hint. In this case, establish port forwarding: